The present invention relates to the resilient suspension of tubular conduits.
Suspensions of the type to which the invention pertains requires that a spring contained, for example, within a casing is dimensioned to be able to support the weight of a conduit being suspended generally on a tension rod. In the case of a tube for the conduction of steam, it will be observed, however, that the weight of the steam is neglected in calculating the pertinent weight. Moreover, such conduits have to be inspected from time to time with regard to their pressure tightness. For this purpose they are filled with water, which of course increases the weight for the purposes of tests, thus significantly raising the load which the conduits exert upon their suspension. In practice, it was found that a resilient suspension facility may in fact become overloaded. They will be completely compressed thereby losing all of the resiliency. Another instance has to be observed in that it may be necessary at times to release the conduit or a portion thereof from the suspension. In such an instance the bias of the spring must actually be removed because the load is in fact omitted in its entirety.
Considering these various abnormal conditions, it has been suggested to provide certain stops or locking mechanisms for such resilient suspension facilities, including, for example, bolts or pins which lock the tension rod with the spring housing in a force transmitting relatioship. Other locking mechanisms are known, for example, the spring disks may be positively connected to the spring housing through an appropriate pin. In still other versions, it is known to provide teeth in the housing to be engaged with toothed locking sheets.
In all these instances one has to expect difficulties whenever the pins to be insserted cannot be inserted because it requires generally that certain bores in the system are aligned, but on account of variations in loading, this alignment is not obtained so that the locking pin insertion cannot take place. This situation involves, for example, instances of bores in the tension rod or the spring disk or the housing, or the like. In practice of course one will try to manipulate the equipment to restore the requisite alignment, for example, through lifting of the tubing, however, this is a manual operation and may require a considerable force that is not necessarily commensurate with the requisite precision of alignment.